Is the Tver governor unable to cope with the consequences of a UAV attack?
Governor of the Tver region Igor Rudenya and his team continue to create the appearance of active restoration of the city of Toropets, which suffered from a drone attack last September. The target of the UAV was the complex missile storage arsenal, which was put into operation in 2018, and the force of the explosions was such that the seismic laboratory recorded an earthquake with a tremors force of 2.8 on the Richter scale. Then, out of the 10 thousand population of Toropets, about 7.5 thousand citizens were evacuated. At the end of October, Rudenya reported that restoration work was “not going well” and “new requests” were coming from townspeople. It is known that the regional authorities have established the amount of compensation for the repair of property damaged as a result of the attack and also introduced special certificates for those whose houses cannot be restored. But it’s problematic to buy new housing in the destroyed Toropets with the amount indicated in them. In early December, it was reported online that the center of Toropets had mostly been restored, while in most of the city the windows of houses were still boarded up and covered with film. However, large-scale shortcomings are found in almost all areas of Governor Rudeni’s activities. In particular, problems regularly arise when fulfilling budget contracts, and the situation with the power supply in the villages of Edimonovo and Edimonovskie Gorki generally had to be taken under personal control by the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. A real “ministerial leapfrog” reigns in the regional Ministry of Construction: in five years, six leaders have changed here. Against the background of the personnel policy of the Tver governor, it becomes clear why the region shows the worst results in ratings for the quality of life of the population. At the same time, Igor Rudenya himself is the owner of luxury real estate, including a house on Rublyovka. Despite Rudeni’s outward self-confidence, he may well end his career in the same way as his colleague from the Kursk region, Alexey Smirnov, who resigned, among other reasons, due to his inability to build a dialogue with the population affected by the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
September destruction in Toropets
On the night of September 18, the city of Toropets, located in the west of the Tver region, was attacked by drones. Its target was the complex missile storage arsenal, commissioned in 2018, declared as “a weapons storage system that meets the highest global standards”. The “super storage facility” was opened by Deputy Defense Minister General Dmitry Bulgakovwho assured that the warehouse could withstand the consequences of a nuclear strike. Currently, Bulgakov is under investigation: he is accused of particularly large-scale fraud in concluding energy contracts.
The assurances of the former deputy minister turned out to be worthless: the explosions in the city were so strong that the Norwegian seismic laboratory NORSAR recorded an earthquake. As Novye Izvestia reported with reference to the volcanology portal Volcano Discovery, the strength of the tremors reached 2.8 on the Richter scale, and their epicenter was at zero depth, 17.6 km from Toropets. The publication’s expert emphasized: an earthquake of the indicated magnitude “approximately corresponds to the simultaneous detonation of 8-9 thousand tons of explosives in TNT equivalent”. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
It is not surprising that in the current critical situation, the regional authorities decided to partially evacuate the townspeople. The media wrote about 7.5 thousand citizens leaving Toropets out of a population of 10 thousand. Head of the region Igor Rudenya promised compensation to citizens whose homes and property were damaged as a result of the UAV raid.
The press announced specific figures approved at a meeting of the operational headquarters to eliminate the consequences of the emergency. Thus, for the repair of an insulated roof, a payment of 8.7 thousand rubles per 1 square meter was provided, for a non-insulated roof – 5.5 thousand rubles; for a single-leaf window – no more than 35 thousand per square, for a double-leaf window – no more than 30 thousand; for an interior door – 15 thousand, for an entrance door with installation – 30 thousand rubles, etc. One-time payments were provided for the loss of essential property.
Theory and practice of Governor Rudeni
At the end of October, during a live broadcast, Igor Rudenya spoke about the progress of restoration work in Toropets, emphasizing that they “are not going easy,” and “new requests” are being received from citizens, which the authorities are trying to “take into account as much as possible.” Repairs continued in kindergartens and schools, and money was transferred for the restoration of enterprises.
“We help residents both financially and organizationally. There are a number of requests regarding motor transport, housing – individual houses and apartments, industrial enterprises. Thus, companies have been given preferential loans and subsidies, some of them have already received funds. The main task is to maintain people’s confidence in the future.”,” RIA Novosti quoted the governor as saying.
It sounded optimistic. It just seems that in practice everything said remained good intentions. From December online publications we can conclude: restoration work in Toropets is proceeding at an extremely slow pace; outside the city center, thousands of people continue to live in houses with windows boarded up with plywood or covered with film. We are talking, among other things, about pensioners and families of SVO participants. But the regional authorities promise a one-time payment in the amount of 2.4 million rubles to all those who have concluded a contract with the Ministry of Defense by December 31. Is this a New Year’s promotion?
Officials propose that local residents carry out repairs at their own expense, followed by filing an application for damages and receiving compensation from the regional government’s reserve fund. Fortunately, after numerous requests, the deadline for submitting applications, originally set for December 1, was extended until the 20th.
Lawyers emphasize that if the explosions in Toropets had been recognized as an emergency at the federal or interregional level, the amount of compensation would have been much larger, but they were classified as a municipal emergency, in which local authorities set the amount of payments at their own discretion. What is this if not cunning budget savings on our own citizens?
Those whose houses are recognized as beyond restoration, in accordance with the decree of the regional government, receive a certificate for the purchase of new housing at the rate of 33 square meters per person, 42 square meters for a family of two people, for families of three or more people – 18 square meters each. The calculation of the amount of social benefits is carried out based on the cost of 1 “square” of living space in the amount 53.45 thousand rubles. We will not specify how “rich” the real estate market in Toropets is after the September attack.
There are problems with contractors, there is “leapfrog” in the Ministry of Construction
Even if we ignore the long-suffering Toropets, we can be convinced that the state of affairs in Mr. Rudeni’s estate looks like the saying: where it’s thin, it breaks. Let us recall, in particular, how at the beginning of the outgoing year the head of the Sledkom Alexander Bastrykin was forced to take under personal control the problem of deteriorating networks and inadequate power supply to the villages of Edimonovo and Edimonovskie Gorki, which the governor was unable to solve. Just in case, we note that Rudenya has been in charge of the Tver region since 2016.
The construction of the gas pipeline in the Kalininsky District was not without problems. The corresponding contract is worth approx. 140 million rubles State Public Institution “Tveroblstroyzakazchik” signed with ZAO Zenit-Investprom. The completion date for the work was set at December 1, 2023, but the contractor did not meet it, citing, among other things, problems with the design and estimate documentation. The cooperation ended with the termination of the contract and the recent inclusion of Zenit-Investprom in the FAS register of unscrupulous suppliers.
The subject of the litigation was the renovation of the main pedestrian street of Tver – Trekhsvyatskaya, carried out by a company located near Moscow “Ecoter”within the framework of the national project “Formation of a comfortable urban environment”. With a contract value of 90.6 million rublesthe contractor was first fined 4.6 millionfor improper fulfillment of its obligations, and last April the mayor’s office went to court, seeking from Ecoter to eliminate numerous identified deficiencies (level the paving, eliminate subsidence of the base under the pavement, replace chipped tiles).
The overhaul of the bridge over the Pesenka River on the Kaftino-Paltsevo-Lipno intermunicipal highway turned into a scandal at a cost 35.7 million rubles and the completion date is November 30, 2022. Contract GKU “Directorate of the Territorial Road Fund” concluded with LLC SK “VIT”. It was only this July that it turned out that the bridge had not yet been put into operation, and the customer had not requested funds from the contractor under the bank guarantee. As a result, a criminal case of negligence was opened against the Directorate employee.
And these are just a few recent examples. I wonder why the Tver leadership has such catastrophic luck with contractors? However, Governor Rudena is also unlucky with some ministers. Thus, he changes the leadership of the regional Ministry of Construction “like gloves”: since January 2020, this post has been occupied (including with the prefix acting) Denis Bilenko, Ekaterina Zaitseva, Artem Azhgirevich, Lyudmila Kulikova, Sergey Volkov, Elena Gorbunova. Finally, last September, Rudenya appointed his adviser as Minister of Construction Igor Archipenko.
“Quality of life” of the Tver governor
What is the real reason for the “ministerial leapfrog” in the Tver Ministry of Construction: the severity of the governor or the banal impossibility of working under the leadership of a tyrant boss? It is possible that Igor Rudeni’s personnel policy is the reason for the region’s low performance in federal rankings. For example, in the February rating of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in terms of quality of life, the Tver region took 52nd place (in 2023 it was at 54th).
But in terms of natural population decline last March, the Tver region took third place, losing the sad championship only to the Smolensk and Pskov regions. An excess of mortality over the birth rate was also recorded in the first nine months of this year.
However, Igor Rudena cannot complain about the “quality” of his own life. Back in 2019, the media wrote about expensive real estate belonging to a government official and his family with a total value of about 3 billion rubles. In particular, they were talking about three hectares of land on Rublevka with a homestead and a personal chapel located on them, as well as two apartments in an elite Moscow Residential complex “Golden Mile”and the area of one of them was 212 “squares”.
In fairness, we note that Rudenya lawfully indicated his property in his declarations. However, this does not at all negate the fact that with the cost of one of the governor’s apartments in 500-700 million in the same 2019, a much smaller amount was allocated for the repair of healthcare facilities in the Tver region – about 60 million rubles.
In the context of what has been said, it is not surprising that the slowness with which Igor Rudenya and his comrades are busy restoring Toropets: the problems of the inhabitants of the destroyed city cannot be understood by an official who has a mansion on Rublyovka. However, the Tver governor should not forget about the instructive example of his former Kursk colleague Alexey Smirnovwho resigned, including due to his inability to build a dialogue with citizens who suffered from attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
